Web notes from Benjamin Whitmer

(Novelist) Nick Cave on Jim Thompson

Mostly, though, what puts people off about Cave’s work is his ability to make bad guys seem sympathetic. “I’ve got a new novel coming out, and I’ve been trying to do that with a rapist,” he says, laughing. “I’m trying to make him funny.”

The book, which Cave finished mere days ago, is called The Death of Bunny Munro, and it grew out of a screenplay that never got made. Munro is “just not a good guy,” Cave says.

“But I’ve always liked things like those Jim Thompson novels, where you’ve just got [a protagonist who’s] flat-out evil. But there’s always something a little endearing about him. And Thompson would draw you, chapter by chapter, into this vortex, where your sympathies are stretched finer and finer. I’ve always found that interesting in his books.”